(EXPANDED FROM 10/31/2022) The automotive media tends to treat orphaned American brands with extra enthusiastic pom-pom waving. An example of the genre is Mark J. McCourt’s (2020) Hemmings article about Oldsmobile. He breathlessly insisted that […]
(EXPANDED FROM 6/8/2022) A few years ago Karl Ludvigsen (2022) wondered whether some cars that were renamed should not have been. For example, he noted that Ford might have benefitted by keeping the Cortina name […]
C. L. Zinn II’s book, Javelin Photo Archive (2002), offered an anecdote that illustrated Vince Geraci’s enthusiasm for the Rambler Marlin. At the time Geraci managed American Motors’ Large Car Studio, which took the lead […]
(EXPANDED FROM 8/19/2022) The topic that has elicited the greatest blowback from Indie Auto readers has been my argument that the U.S. auto industry was less able to respond to a rising tide of imports […]
(EXPANDED FROM 8/9/2022) A few years ago Corey Lewis (2022) wrote that the 1960 Lincoln’s entry-level model was “rebranded as simply ‘Lincoln,’ to compete with the new base model Chrysler New Yorker (1960-1962) and Series […]
(EXPANDED FROM 1/7/2022) When writing about the 1953-54 Plymouth, I wondered whether there could have been a compromise between the practicality of Chrysler head K. T. Keller and the trendiness of his successor, Tex Colbert. Let’s apply that question to […]
(EXPANDED FROM 1/10/2022) Now that we’re once again hitting the peak of gift-giving season, let’s take a look at one of the more popular automotive books. My Dad Had That Car ranks among the top-15 […]
As Pontiac prepared for the 1967 model year it struggled with what to do about a problem. Although overall sales were so good that the brand had carved out a solid third place in total […]
For its September 1973 issue, Motor Trend published a pro/con feature asking whether “romantic” styling was dead. In other words, did new considerations such as safety and pollution laws as well as more emphasis on […]
I feel torn in writing a review about The Complete Book of AMC Cars (2024). New auto history books are rare enough these days that anyone who navigates the gauntlet of getting published deserves applause. […]
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